[Coronita]

So I guess the lesson to learn here is that, if you want your kids to make $10million, give them $9.8million to start out with.

Looks like i better get busy.

[Coronita]

The thread that keeps giving. I’m so sorry I brought this thing up.
I was more sticker shocked than anything else.

But flyer’s right. It’s probably harder to get in than being able to afford to pay for it.And by “ivy”.. I don’t mean just “ivy”. I mean any elite school public or private (MIT/Stanford/Berkeley,etc)

The funny part was I got into the ivy’s but got rejected for Berkeley EE/CS, and admitted into every other UC school. I was asked to re-apply for spring admissions. In hindsight, that was probably a good thing… I might have turned into a extreme left liberal if I went to Berkeley, if I got in….HA!

[Coronita]

[quote=bearishgurl] One step at a time, especially for a freshman away from home for the first time!
[/quote]

I thought it was fun to see the seasons change going from the west coast to east coast

[quote]
Your kid still has to focus and pass all their classes and you (as a parent) can’t hold their hand anymore.
[/quote]

Not when you could have AP’d out of your first year, but decided to take it easy the first year, and repeat some of your classes while taking new ones. In fact, it’s even better if the first year, you used the same exact textbook and homework assignments as your AP class in senior year.

[quote] Distractions abound on a college campus (esp a large public university campus) and so your kid has to be focused and self-motivated in order to graduate in 4-4.5 years. And very, VERY assertive and decisive on their scheduled dates and times for ongoing class registration!
[/quote]

Actually, I never had a scheduling problem for all my classes. Afterall, you don’t have this problem at any private schools, ivy or not. The only class I wasn’t able to get in was “Wine Tasting” offered by the hotel adminstration school, because everyone wanted to take that class.

[Coronita]

[quote=scaredyclassic]this month’s issue of MONEY magazine lists best 20 year ROI for degrees, from no. 1 to no. 10:

1 harvey mudd
2. caltech
3. stevens inst of tech.
4. co. school of mines (in state tuition
5. babson coll.
6. stanford
7 MIT
8 georgia institute of tech
9. princeton
10. co. school of mines (out of state tuition

20 year r.o.i. ranging from a high of 985k for no. 1 (over and above tuition paid) to 771k for no. 10

princeton barely clawed its way on there to represent for the ivies, presumably harvard yale etc do less well…

there ya have it. straight from money mag. a magazine i hate, but which for some reaosn I subscribed to last yr. this is my last issue. i hate this magazine. hate it. the offer was so cheap whowever i just sent the damn thing on in on a whim. dumb. i cant even articulate why i despise this magazine so much.

was gonna renew my oldsubscription to adbusters, sort fo the anti-money magzine but itwas too much money. no discounts. 50 bucks for 4 issues. just horrifically depressing, dystopian disaster. no stats on ROI for university degrees. just screeds against corporate evil destruction. althugh now i see its a little cheaper if i subscribe ont he internet.

since harvey mudd is 50k a year tuition, kid ahs to make 100k to get that million dolalr return over 20 years.

i think a kid is way more likely to get a better return on investment from a mere 8k investment as an engineering student at a cal state school.

obviously theres more to the equation than just ROI, but still…

point is…

ivies dont get the return on investment these schools do, on average…[/quote]

You pay for magazines? I just use my miles on random airlines that I won’t ever get a free ticket for…

[Coronita]

[quote=Essbee][quote=cvmom][quote=bearishgurl]If you already know filing a FAFSA won’t do you or your student any good, then don’t file one.[/quote]

Does anyone else have a perspective on this? With our income in the junior/senior year >$400K there is zero chance for aid from Ivy or any other school, I would think. So why go through all the time/energy to fill it out? Any reason? Or can we skip it?[/quote]

I had never thought about it before, but my good friend was bringing up this idea a few weeks ago. She and her husband make >>$500K/year. They think that their kids will have an advantage if they do not fill out any aid paperwork, and come in as an obvious intended “full pay” student. She and her husband are both Ivy grads as well, BTW, but were solidly middle class. Her husband was ROTC his education was paid for.

Her idea is that it’s great to apply to Ivies either as a very poor student or very wealthy student, but that the “upper middle class and still seeking aid” is a bad place to be.

Her kids are 7, 5, and 6 months, so she has a while to figure it out…[/quote]

But this just isn’t wrto college admissions but other things like taxes, especially if you’re on W2’s 🙂

In perspective, it is kind of funny that for household AGI’s >$400k, we’re talking about “financial aid”… I totally understand where you are coming from, but it’s just kind of funny.

Fortunately, I have only one 🙂

[Coronita]

cool. This time it’s different though. This time i’ll have more than 1 property i can sell.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN]For some reason, I keep on thinking 7 figures is $10M+. Which is why I said what I said. You’re right, there are plenty of W2-er with 7 figures. I guess that’s what happen when you go to a states school. I don’t learn how to count in term of figures :-).[/quote]

See, that’s the just one more difference between going to a state college versus and ivy league college. We’re better with numbers. Us Ivy Leaguers are use to seeing and working with larger numbers….When it comes to paying tuition.

[Coronita]

[quote=scaredyclassic]Can we count the figures to the right of the decimal point?[/quote]

HAHAHAHA…. I laughed.

[Coronita]

UT Austin is a great school. We’ve seen a lot of candidates from there back in the old QC days and even at my current company.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]If both kids and parents actually want to live in Austin it makes sense. Not sure about this case.

I am fortunate my kid is only three so I don’t have to deal with this non-sense for a long time. Also, I fully expect that within the next 15 years this “Higher Education Bubble” will have burst.[/quote]

Just like the current housing “bubble” ? 🙁

[Coronita]

So what do you guys think about the latest thing that happened in Arizona with the cop running over an armed gunman? Justified?

[Coronita]

no milestone accomplished for me until my passive income = my salaried income. It’s a long road ahead. Still a salary slave.
Ok, maybe not a slave, maybe it’s slightly upgraded to being Uncle Sam’s W2 indentured servant.

[Coronita]

[quote=scaredyclassic]but here’s a contrarian plan.

JUST BORROW BOATLOADS OF MONEY.

in fact, try to maximize debt. assuming you and your family dont have much in the way of assets, it might not be irrational. With law school or med school, you might very well be able to climb up t the 400 or 500k in debt range.

then just put it all on IBR

(income based repayment).

basically, at huge debt levels, the gov. doesnt want you to defailt. there are all sorts of plans to stop defaulting, including IBR PAYE and public service forgivenemess.

IBR is based on income, its almost like a tax…but it takes the risk of the debt away from you, because your payment is only based on what you can pay.

of course, this is a giant governmental scam that only serves to prop up absurd tuition prices.
when the debt level gets high enough its the banks problems, not yours.

the main obstacle to this plan would be in not fretting over the debt, or, in the parlance of young debtors over at http://www.jdunderground.com , to “stop giving any fucks”.

its a daring, bold strategy, no t one i personally would have the cojones to engage in…[/quote]

Unfortunately, that strategy would go against the grain of every bone in my body. Heck, I can’t even get enough cojones to take out a close to 0% loan if I were to buy a new car, all else being equal. Somehow, I don’t think my kid will be qualifying for financial assistance one way or the other. Heck, I didn’t even like having an outstanding balance on my HELOC for the past couple of months, even though rates are at 3% capped +3%, while the rental returns about 6-7%. Damn being financially responsible.

[Coronita]

I guess all these things are interesting perspectives from real parents going through this lately, because being the planning person as I am, I’m trying to figure how much to put into a 529 account. Since I’m stopping at 1 kid, and since no one else I know will be going back to school, maybe it’s better just to contribute more to a UGMA custodial account.

[Coronita]

[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=Gata]I’ve been following Pigginton’s blogs for some time — very informative and smart comments. I thought I would make my first comment on this topic, as we have basically re-designed our life around the outrageously high tuition costs in the US. For anyone who hasn’t, I highly recommend watching Ivory Tower, the CNN documentary about Ivy League v other schools – it basically supports the argument that Ivy League schools are overpriced, and I agree. I attended a top-tier law school and graduated with honors, finished my LLM with the highest GPA (for which I received an award), all debt free. Now we are focusing on UT Austin for our daughter, who has expressed an interest in pursuing an engineering degree. We’ve given up on UC, due to budget costs and the seemingly prevailing policy of accepting more out-of-staters who bring the bigger $$. UT Austin ranks 8th for engineering (not as high as UCB, but realistically I don’t think our daughter would get in with an 8% acceptance rate mostly met by out-of-staters or foreigners); it’s considered a “public ivy”, and tuition is only $10k/ year for engineering. We sold our San Diego home last year for asking price and bought a house in Austin to qualify for in-state tuition, where she/we will live during her college years. We managed to find a loophole to get an ag exemption on property taxes, which be in effect in 5 years, basically our current property taxes will finance her tuition. Assuming she gets accepted, her degree will be high quality, she will be debt free, and we can pass on real estate to her, which will provide a starting point for her life. And if she doesn’t get accepted into UT Austin, we could sell the house at a profit (it’s paid off) and pay her tuition wherever she ends up (including an ivy school if that was her choice). And my husband and I will retire in our home in HI knowing that our daughter will be financially stable and debt-free, which, to us, is more important than an Ivy League degree, but which doesn’t necessarily result from it. Most importantly, all this moving around was our daughter’s decision – she prefers HI and Austin over SD. Go figure…[/quote]

not irrational, though very flexible and difficult to maneuver. I can barely get everyone to decide where we are going to eat out.

overall family financial health is a lot more sane than extreme sacrificing for no clear goal.[/quote]

That’s a good point.

[Author]

Posts